The much-awaited Women’s Premier League (WPL) is all set to start from 4th March, in the inaugural season of WPL five teams will be competing in the tournament. IPL chairman, Arun Dhumal has expressed his views on WPL 2023 and its comparison with IPL.
In the recent announcement by BCCI, the schedule of IPL 2023 was declared, the 16th edition of IPL will kickstart with the opening match between defending champions Gujarat Giants and CSK.
IPL chairman believed WPL will change the lives of women’s cricketers in India-
“We have seen how the IPL not only transformed cricket in India, but globally,”
“It has made cricket more interesting and the reach has grown manifold. More Test matches are now yelding results, you hardly see any Test ending in a draw now,” said Dhumal.
IPL 2023 will feature 74 matches, team count was increased from 8 to 10 from the last edition. Two new teams, Gujarat and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) joined India’s T20 league in IPL 2022.
“Nobody would’ve imagined 15-20 years back that a team would score 300-400 plus runs or anybody scoring 200 runs in an ODI and that is happening at regular intervals. Legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar took so many years to score a double hundred in an ODI,” he further added
Preps in full swing ?@mipaltan are ready to hit the ground running ?#TATAWPL pic.twitter.com/XNj8bhCZ1v
— Women's Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) February 26, 2023
“He was the first one to score a double century in ODI and that was such great news at that point in time. And after that, so many double hunderds have been scored by different players. It is amazing how cricket has changed post IPL,” concluded Dhumal.
Scheduled India’s women’s T20 league is set to be placed from 4th to 26th March, the inaugural season of WPL will have five teams. The opening game will be between Gujarat Giants and Mumbai Indians on 4th March at DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai.
Star Indian opener Smriti Mandhana was the most expensive player in the WPL auction, she was taken for a thumping amount of INR 3.4 crore by RCB. The opening season will be played in two stadiums, Brabourne and DY Patil Sports Stadium in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai respectively.